Page 82 of The Bright Side of Christmas
“I don’t know, Adam,” she sighs, exhaustion in the words, and my stomach drops to my feet.
“Come on. Just come over. We don’t even have to talk about things. Let me feed you, get you to bed, hold you. I have something to show you.” I don’t tell her that a part of me desperately wants to show her my surprise, to just make one shining moment in this terrible mess.
This afternoon, I was so high on excitement and joy, and love. How did it spiral this badly?
“It’s going to be extra late,” she says.
“I don’t care how late it is, Wren. Please.”
She bites her lip and opens her mouth to speak, but then her phone rings. She reaches over and checks the screen, then sighs. “That’s Nat. I gotta go.”
She steps away, slinging the large bag over her shoulder, and then moves to the door, looking at me. I follow slowly, feeling dread in every step, knowing this is going to hang between us until it’s fixed, and not entirely knowing if she’ll want to fix it if she gets the opportunity to distance herself from it. From me.
Wren doesn’t like messy emotions, and she might realize she can avoid them altogether if she avoids me.
I walk her to her car and open the door, watching her slip in. “See you tonight?”
A single strand of hope sparkles between us, and a moment passes, feeling like an eternity.
“We’ll see.” I know she sees my face dropping, because the smallest sad noise comes from her. I try to mask myself, not wanting to add even more to her full plate.
“Okay,” I say with a reluctant nod. “Keep me posted.”
She nods, then silence fills the space.
“Later, Birdie.”
“Bye, Adam,” she says, and I don’t miss that she saysbyeinstead ofsee you later, and it pierces my chest. She pulls her door shut and starts the car before giving me a small, sad wave.
Then she drives off, taking every ounce of holiday spirit with her.
THIRTY
She doesn’t come to my house that night, and in my mind, that’s her answer. Her car was still missing by the time I begrudgingly went to bed, not that I slept much, keeping an ear out for the sound of tires on her drive. When I woke up to find her car already out of the driveway, I wondered if she had even come home the night before.
Even though I’m pretty sure she won’t be coming home later in the morning since she’s planning to do setup and finishing touches at the community center, and the doors open at four, I spend the whole day with an eye on her house, ready to head over there and try to iron this out the second I see her.
I don’t, though.
By four, I’m pacing my house and know that the very early part of the celebration has begun, and I can’t keep pacing my place indefinitely. Without any real plan, I get in my car and start to drive. I drive past the community center, noticing the lot is full and the entire place decked out in Christmas lights, before continuing down the road. In contrast, the lot for The Mill is nearly empty when I pull in, and if I didn’t see the neonopensign lit up, I’d think it was closed. The inside looks downrightdepressing when I walk in, just four customers scattered through the usually busy bar.
When I sidle up to the bar, leaving my phone face up just in case someone reaches out to me—in caseshereaches out to me—Colton comes up in front of me, an eyebrow raised high.
“Surprised to see you here.”
I shrug in indifference. “Surprised you’re even open.”
“In a small town like this, after the festival starts to wind down, people without families to get home to will need somewhere to go. By nine, this place will be packed.”
I nod but don’t say anything more. I don’t even order a drink; I’m not in the mood at all. In fact, I’m not really sure why I came here, other than that Colt is the only other person I really know in town, and I couldn’t stay in my house a minute longer.
“You’re not going to the Christmas festival?”
I let out a humorless laugh, thinking about Wren and her family and the whole damn town enjoying a festive time together. “I don’t think I’d be very welcome.”
Colton’s laugh actually contains humor. “Why, because you’re the least cheery fuck around?”
“No,” I say with a sigh, and then, because I think I crossed the town limits and every aspect of my personality changed, I share. “Wren and I got into a fight.”
